Saturday, April 21, 2007

Earth Day Gridblog by Angie

So, it's Earth Day. I like Earth Day because I have some cool pictures of the earth, looking happy but exhausted, wiping her forehed (which I believe is somewhere in Northern Canada, for you Yellowknifians) with a hankie. I photocopy this and let the kids colour it on Earth Day. Also John and I end up talking about how we can do things better in the coming year. It's not a planned, let's sit down at 2:30 with a pen and some graph paper sort of thing, although if that works for you, go team. This year we really noticed packaging. We recycle it all, but for those of you who know the three Rs it's reduce, reuse, recycle and which comes first? That's right. So, we'll definately do more bulk shopping. Costco sells in bulk, but it can get tricky because it's three loaves of bread in a whole other bag. Or two sour cream tubs in a whole extra cardboard cover. Very uncool, Costco. We'll still shop there because it's cheap and we eat like pigs, which leads me to our second change of the year. Stop eating like pigs. For the most part, except for the odd Friday night when we're craving hot wings even though we're not hungry. But eating more than your body needs is taking from the earth and from others, ultimately.

I don't ever want to be one of those militant, sign holding, deoderant not wearing, leg not shaving (except in the winter when I just don't feel like shaving my legs, but that's not for environmental reasons) extremists. I'm really not too worried about that happening, but I feel good when I choose organic over poison infused (sorry, that was a little extremist), or walk home from Superstore with a pyramid of food balanced on my arms because I chose no bags. I would like to lessen our footprint so we're not using up 3 1/2 earths, and I don't think that's extreme at all. If anything, using up more than our planet can give is extreme. So.

Oh, this is cool. Maddie wants to plant trees for her birthday party this year. And no, we didn't prod and hint and leave pictures of clear cut forests around the house until she came up with the idea. It was on her own. So, if anyone knows how exactly one goes about doing that....

Ang

2 comments:

Brian said...

Camryn and I went to 10 000 Villages today. We were shopping for a present for her classmate. I thought we'd stop in. She loved the store and ended up buying a couple of cool toys that were "fair trade" and made by families who really needed the money. She wants her next present to come from there too.

I don't know. Just thought I'd share. It feels good when your offspring make good choices, eh.

Brian

Buffy Close said...

Wow - I have one very large "footprint". Might take more than cloth diapers to shrink it too. Would getting hte minivan instead of the SUV help, or would that be just as bad?